Strange to say, in spite of the general foreboding, nothing of especialmoment happened on the _Ghost_. We ran on to the north and west till weraised the coast of Japan and picked up with the great seal herd. Comingfrom no man knew where in the illimitable Pacific, it was travellingnorth on its annual migration to the rookeries of Bering Sea. And northwe travelled with it, ravaging and destroying, flinging the nakedcarcasses to the shark and salting down the skins so that they mightlater adorn the fair shoulders of the women of the cities.

It was wanton slaughter, and all for woman’s sake. No man ate of theseal meat or the oil. After a good day’s killing I have seen our deckscovered with hides and bodies, slippery with fat and blood, the scuppersrunning red; masts, ropes, and rails spattered with the sanguinarycolour; and the men, like butchers plying their trade, naked and red ofarm and hand, hard at work with ripping and flensing-knives, removing theskins from the pretty sea-creatures they had killed.

It was my task to tally the pelts as they came aboard from the boats, tooversee the skinning and afterward the cleansing of the decks andbringing things ship-shape again. It was not pleasant work. My soul andmy stomach revolted at it; and yet, in a way, this handling and directingof many men was good for me. It developed what little executive abilityI possessed, and I was aware of a toughening or hardening which I wasundergoing and which could not be anything but wholesome for “Sissy” VanWeyden.

One thing I was beginning to feel, and that was that I could never againbe quite the same man I had been. While my hope and faith in human lifestill survived Wolf Larsen’s destructive criticism, he had neverthelessbeen a cause of change in minor matters. He had opened up for me theworld of the real, of which I had known practically nothing and fromwhich I had always shrunk. I had learned to look more closely at life asit was lived, to recognize that there were such things as facts in theworld, to emerge from the realm of mind and idea and to place certainvalues on the concrete and objective phases of existence.

I saw more of Wolf Larsen than ever when we had gained the grounds. Forwhen the weather was fair and we were in the midst of the herd, all handswere away in the boats, and left on board were only he and I, and ThomasMugridge, who did not count. But there was no play about it. The sixboats, spreading out fan-wise from the schooner until the first weatherboat and the last lee boat were anywhere from ten to twenty miles apart,cruised along a straight course over the sea till nightfall or badweather drove them in. It was our duty to sail the _Ghost_ well toleeward of the last lee boat, so that all the boats should have fair windto run for us in case of squalls or threatening weather.

It is no slight matter for two men, particularly when a stiff wind hassprung up, to handle a vessel like the _Ghost_, steering, keepinglook-out for the boats, and setting or taking in sail; so it devolvedupon me to learn, and learn quickly. Steering I picked up easily, butrunning aloft to the crosstrees and swinging my whole weight by my armswhen I left the ratlines and climbed still higher, was more difficult.This, too, I learned, and quickly, for I felt somehow a wild desire tovindicate myself in Wolf Larsen’s eyes, to prove my right to live in waysother than of the mind. Nay, the time came when I took joy in the run ofthe masthead and in the clinging on by my legs at that precarious heightwhile I swept the sea with glasses in search of the boats.

I remember one beautiful day, when the boats left early and the reportsof the hunters’ guns grew dim and distant and died away as they scatteredfar and wide over the sea. There was just the faintest wind from thewestward; but it breathed its last by the time we managed to get toleeward of the last lee boat. One by one—I was at the masthead andsaw—the six boats disappeared over the bulge of the earth as theyfollowed the seal into the west. We lay, scarcely rolling on the placidsea, unable to follow. Wolf Larsen was apprehensive. The barometer wasdown, and the sky to the east did not please him. He studied it withunceasing vigilance.

“If she comes out of there,” he said, “hard and snappy, putting us towindward of the boats, it’s likely there’ll be empty bunks in steerageand fo’c’sle.”

By eleven o’clock the sea had become glass. By midday, though we werewell up in the northerly latitudes, the heat was sickening. There was nofreshness in the air. It was sultry and oppressive, reminding me of whatthe old Californians term “earthquake weather.” There was somethingominous about it, and in intangible ways one was made to feel that theworst was about to come. Slowly the whole eastern sky filled with cloudsthat over-towered us like some black sierra of the infernal regions. Soclearly could one see cañon, gorge, and precipice, and the shadows thatlie therein, that one looked unconsciously for the white surf-line andbellowing caverns where the sea charges on the land. And still we rockedgently, and there was no wind.

“It’s no square” Wolf Larsen said. “Old Mother Nature’s going to get upon her hind legs and howl for all that’s in her, and it’ll keep usjumping, Hump, to pull through with half our boats. You’d better run upand loosen the topsails.”

“But if it is going to howl, and there are only two of us?” I asked, anote of protest in my voice.

“Why we’ve got to make the best of the first of it and run down to ourboats before our canvas is ripped out of us. After that I don’t give arap what happens. The sticks ’ll stand it, and you and I will have to,though we’ve plenty cut out for us.”

Still the calm continued. We ate dinner, a hurried and anxious meal forme with eighteen men abroad on the sea and beyond the bulge of the earth,and with that heaven-rolling mountain range of clouds moving slowly downupon us. Wolf Larsen did not seem affected, however; though I noticed,when we returned to the deck, a slight twitching of the nostrils, aperceptible quickness of movement. His face was stern, the lines of ithad grown hard, and yet in his eyes—blue, clear blue this day—there was astrange brilliancy, a bright scintillating light. It struck me that hewas joyous, in a ferocious sort of way; that he was glad there was animpending struggle; that he was thrilled and upborne with knowledge thatone of the great moments of living, when the tide of life surges up inflood, was upon him.

Once, and unwitting that he did so or that I saw, he laughed aloud,mockingly and defiantly, at the advancing storm. I see him yet standingthere like a pigmy out of the _Arabian Nights_ before the huge front ofsome malignant genie. He was daring destiny, and he was unafraid.

He walked to the galley. “Cooky, by the time you’ve finished pots andpans you’ll be wanted on deck. Stand ready for a call.”

“Hump,” he said, becoming cognizant of the fascinated gaze I bent uponhim, “this beats whisky and is where your Omar misses. I think he onlyhalf lived after all.”

The western half of the sky had by now grown murky. The sun had dimmedand faded out of sight. It was two in the afternoon, and a ghostlytwilight, shot through by wandering purplish lights, had descended uponus. In this purplish light Wolf Larsen’s face glowed and glowed, and tomy excited fancy he appeared encircled by a halo. We lay in the midst ofan unearthly quiet, while all about us were signs and omens of oncomingsound and movement. The sultry heat had become unendurable. The sweatwas standing on my forehead, and I could feel it trickling down my nose.I felt as though I should faint, and reached out to the rail for support.

And then, just then, the faintest possible whisper of air passed by. Itwas from the east, and like a whisper it came and went. The droopingcanvas was not stirred, and yet my face had felt the air and been cooled.

“Cooky,” Wolf Larsen called in a low voice. Thomas Mugridge turned apitiable scared face. “Let go that foreboom tackle and pass it across,and when she’s willing let go the sheet and come in snug with the tackle.And if you make a mess of it, it will be the last you ever make.Understand?”

“Mr. Van Weyden, stand by to pass the head-sails over. Then jump for thetopsails and spread them quick as God’ll let you—the quicker you do itthe easier you’ll find it. As for Cooky, if he isn’t lively bat himbetween the eyes.”

I was aware of the compliment and pleased, in that no threat hadaccompanied my instructions. We were lying head to north-west, and itwas his intention to jibe over all with the first puff.

“We’ll have the breeze on our quarter,” he explained to me. “By the lastguns the boats were bearing away slightly to the south’ard.”

He turned and walked aft to the wheel. I went forward and took mystation at the jibs. Another whisper of wind, and another, passed by.The canvas flapped lazily.

“Thank Gawd she’s not comin’ all of a bunch, Mr. Van Weyden,” was theCockney’s fervent ejaculation.

And I was indeed thankful, for I had by this time learned enough to know,with all our canvas spread, what disaster in such event awaited us. Thewhispers of wind became puffs, the sails filled, the _Ghost_ moved. WolfLarsen put the wheel hard up, to port, and we began to pay off. The windwas now dead astern, muttering and puffing stronger and stronger, and myhead-sails were pounding lustily. I did not see what went on elsewhere,though I felt the sudden surge and heel of the schooner as thewind-pressures changed to the jibing of the fore- and main-sails. Myhands were full with the flying-jib, jib, and staysail; and by the timethis part of my task was accomplished the _Ghost_ was leaping into thesouth-west, the wind on her quarter and all her sheets to starboard.Without pausing for breath, though my heart was beating like atrip-hammer from my exertions, I sprang to the topsails, and before thewind had become too strong we had them fairly set and were coiling down.Then I went aft for orders.

Wolf Larsen nodded approval and relinquished the wheel to me. The windwas strengthening steadily and the sea rising. For an hour I steered,each moment becoming more difficult. I had not the experience to steerat the gait we were going on a quartering course.

“Now take a run up with the glasses and raise some of the boats. We’vemade at least ten knots, and we’re going twelve or thirteen now. The oldgirl knows how to walk.”

I contested myself with the fore crosstrees, some seventy feet above thedeck. As I searched the vacant stretch of water before me, Icomprehended thoroughly the need for haste if we were to recover any ofour men. Indeed, as I gazed at the heavy sea through which we wererunning, I doubted that there was a boat afloat. It did not seempossible that such frail craft could survive such stress of wind andwater.

I could not feel the full force of the wind, for we were running with it;but from my lofty perch I looked down as though outside the _Ghost_ andapart from her, and saw the shape of her outlined sharply against thefoaming sea as she tore along instinct with life. Sometimes she wouldlift and send across some great wave, burying her starboard-rail fromview, and covering her deck to the hatches with the boiling ocean. Atsuch moments, starting from a windward roll, I would go flying throughthe air with dizzying swiftness, as though I clung to the end of a huge,inverted pendulum, the arc of which, between the greater rolls, must havebeen seventy feet or more. Once, the terror of this giddy sweepoverpowered me, and for a while I clung on, hand and foot, weak andtrembling, unable to search the sea for the missing boats or to beholdaught of the sea but that which roared beneath and strove to overwhelmthe _Ghost_.

But the thought of the men in the midst of it steadied me, and in myquest for them I forgot myself. For an hour I saw nothing but the naked,desolate sea. And then, where a vagrant shaft of sunlight struck theocean and turned its surface to wrathful silver, I caught a small blackspeck thrust skyward for an instant and swallowed up. I waitedpatiently. Again the tiny point of black projected itself through thewrathful blaze a couple of points off our port-bow. I did not attempt toshout, but communicated the news to Wolf Larsen by waving my arm. Hechanged the course, and I signalled affirmation when the speck showeddead ahead.

It grew larger, and so swiftly that for the first time I fullyappreciated the speed of our flight. Wolf Larsen motioned for me to comedown, and when I stood beside him at the wheel gave me instructions forheaving to.

“Expect all hell to break loose,” he cautioned me, “but don’t mind it.Yours is to do your own work and to have Cooky stand by the fore-sheet.”

I managed to make my way forward, but there was little choice of sides,for the weather-rail seemed buried as often as the lee. Havinginstructed Thomas Mugridge as to what he was to do, I clambered into thefore-rigging a few feet. The boat was now very close, and I could makeout plainly that it was lying head to wind and sea and dragging on itsmast and sail, which had been thrown overboard and made to serve as asea-anchor. The three men were bailing. Each rolling mountain whelmedthem from view, and I would wait with sickening anxiety, fearing thatthey would never appear again. Then, and with black suddenness, the boatwould shoot clear through the foaming crest, bow pointed to the sky, andthe whole length of her bottom showing, wet and dark, till she seemed onend. There would be a fleeting glimpse of the three men flinging waterin frantic haste, when she would topple over and fall into the yawningvalley, bow down and showing her full inside length to the stern uprearedalmost directly above the bow. Each time that she reappeared was amiracle.

The _Ghost_ suddenly changed her course, keeping away, and it came to mewith a shock that Wolf Larsen was giving up the rescue as impossible.Then I realized that he was preparing to heave to, and dropped to thedeck to be in readiness. We were now dead before the wind, the boat faraway and abreast of us. I felt an abrupt easing of the schooner, a lossfor the moment of all strain and pressure, coupled with a swiftacceleration of speed. She was rushing around on her heel into the wind.

As she arrived at right angles to the sea, the full force of the wind(from which we had hitherto run away) caught us. I was unfortunately andignorantly facing it. It stood up against me like a wall, filling mylungs with air which I could not expel. And as I choked and strangled,and as the _Ghost_ wallowed for an instant, broadside on and rollingstraight over and far into the wind, I beheld a huge sea rise far abovemy head. I turned aside, caught my breath, and looked again. The waveover-topped the _Ghost_, and I gazed sheer up and into it. A shaft ofsunlight smote the over-curl, and I caught a glimpse of translucent,rushing green, backed by a milky smother of foam.

Then it descended, pandemonium broke loose, everything happened at once.I was struck a crushing, stunning blow, nowhere in particular and yeteverywhere. My hold had been broken loose, I was under water, and thethought passed through my mind that this was the terrible thing of whichI had heard, the being swept in the trough of the sea. My body struckand pounded as it was dashed helplessly along and turned over and over,and when I could hold my breath no longer, I breathed the stinging saltwater into my lungs. But through it all I clung to the one idea—_I mustget the jib backed over to windward_. I had no fear of death. I had nodoubt but that I should come through somehow. And as this idea offulfilling Wolf Larsen’s order persisted in my dazed consciousness, Iseemed to see him standing at the wheel in the midst of the wild welter,pitting his will against the will of the storm and defying it.

I brought up violently against what I took to be the rail, breathed, andbreathed the sweet air again. I tried to rise, but struck my head andwas knocked back on hands and knees. By some freak of the waters I hadbeen swept clear under the forecastle-head and into the eyes. As Iscrambled out on all fours, I passed over the body of Thomas Mugridge,who lay in a groaning heap. There was no time to investigate. I mustget the jib backed over.

When I emerged on deck it seemed that the end of everything had come. Onall sides there was a rending and crashing of wood and steel and canvas.The _Ghost_ was being wrenched and torn to fragments. The foresail andfore-topsail, emptied of the wind by the manœuvre, and with no one tobring in the sheet in time, were thundering into ribbons, the heavy boomthreshing and splintering from rail to rail. The air was thick withflying wreckage, detached ropes and stays were hissing and coiling likesnakes, and down through it all crashed the gaff of the foresail.

The spar could not have missed me by many inches, while it spurred me toaction. Perhaps the situation was not hopeless. I remembered WolfLarsen’s caution. He had expected all hell to break loose, and here itwas. And where was he? I caught sight of him toiling at the main-sheet,heaving it in and flat with his tremendous muscles, the stern of theschooner lifted high in the air and his body outlined against a whitesurge of sea sweeping past. All this, and more,—a whole world of chaosand wreck,—in possibly fifteen seconds I had seen and heard and grasped.

I did not stop to see what had become of the small boat, but sprang tothe jib-sheet. The jib itself was beginning to slap, partially fillingand emptying with sharp reports; but with a turn of the sheet and theapplication of my whole strength each time it slapped, I slowly backedit. This I know: I did my best. I pulled till I burst open the ends ofall my fingers; and while I pulled, the flying-jib and staysail splittheir cloths apart and thundered into nothingness.

Still I pulled, holding what I gained each time with a double turn untilthe next slap gave me more. Then the sheet gave with greater ease, andWolf Larsen was beside me, heaving in alone while I was busied taking upthe slack.

“Make fast!” he shouted. “And come on!”

As I followed him, I noted that in spite of rack and ruin a rough orderobtained. The _Ghost_ was hove to. She was still in working order, andshe was still working. Though the rest of her sails were gone, the jib,backed to windward, and the mainsail hauled down flat, were themselvesholding, and holding her bow to the furious sea as well.

I looked for the boat, and, while Wolf Larsen cleared the boat-tackles,saw it lift to leeward on a big sea an not a score of feet away. And, sonicely had he made his calculation, we drifted fairly down upon it, sothat nothing remained to do but hook the tackles to either end and hoistit aboard. But this was not done so easily as it is written.

In the bow was Kerfoot, Oofty-Oofty in the stern, and Kelly amidships.As we drifted closer the boat would rise on a wave while we sank in thetrough, till almost straight above me I could see the heads of the threemen craned overside and looking down. Then, the next moment, we wouldlift and soar upward while they sank far down beneath us. It seemedincredible that the next surge should not crush the _Ghost_ down upon thetiny eggshell.

But, at the right moment, I passed the tackle to the Kanaka, while WolfLarsen did the same thing forward to Kerfoot. Both tackles were hookedin a trice, and the three men, deftly timing the roll, made asimultaneous leap aboard the schooner. As the _Ghost_ rolled her sideout of water, the boat was lifted snugly against her, and before thereturn roll came, we had heaved it in over the side and turned it bottomup on the deck. I noticed blood spouting from Kerfoot’s left hand. Insome way the third finger had been crushed to a pulp. But he gave nosign of pain, and with his single right hand helped us lash the boat inits place.

“Stand by to let that jib over, you Oofty!” Wolf Larsen commanded, thevery second we had finished with the boat. “Kelly, come aft and slackoff the main-sheet! You, Kerfoot, go for’ard and see what’s become ofCooky! Mr. Van Weyden, run aloft again, and cut away any stray stuff onyour way!”

And having commanded, he went aft with his peculiar tigerish leaps to thewheel. While I toiled up the fore-shrouds the _Ghost_ slowly paid off.This time, as we went into the trough of the sea and were swept, therewere no sails to carry away. And, halfway to the crosstrees andflattened against the rigging by the full force of the wind so that itwould have been impossible for me to have fallen, the _Ghost_ almost onher beam-ends and the masts parallel with the water, I looked, not down,but at almost right angles from the perpendicular, to the deck of the_Ghost_. But I saw, not the deck, but where the deck should have been,for it was buried beneath a wild tumbling of water. Out of this water Icould see the two masts rising, and that was all. The _Ghost_, for themoment, was buried beneath the sea. As she squared off more and more,escaping from the side pressure, she righted herself and broke her deck,like a whale’s back, through the ocean surface.

Then we raced, and wildly, across the wild sea, the while I hung like afly in the crosstrees and searched for the other boats. In half-an-hourI sighted the second one, swamped and bottom up, to which weredesperately clinging Jock Horner, fat Louis, and Johnson. This time Iremained aloft, and Wolf Larsen succeeded in heaving to without beingswept. As before, we drifted down upon it. Tackles were made fast andlines flung to the men, who scrambled aboard like monkeys. The boatitself was crushed and splintered against the schooner’s side as it cameinboard; but the wreck was securely lashed, for it could be patched andmade whole again.

Once more the _Ghost_ bore away before the storm, this time so submergingherself that for some seconds I thought she would never reappear. Eventhe wheel, quite a deal higher than the waist, was covered and sweptagain and again. At such moments I felt strangely alone with God, alonewith him and watching the chaos of his wrath. And then the wheel wouldreappear, and Wolf Larsen’s broad shoulders, his hands gripping thespokes and holding the schooner to the course of his will, himself anearth-god, dominating the storm, flinging its descending waters from himand riding it to his own ends. And oh, the marvel of it! the marvel ofit! That tiny men should live and breathe and work, and drive so frail acontrivance of wood and cloth through so tremendous an elemental strife.

As before, the _Ghost_ swung out of the trough, lifting her deck againout of the sea, and dashed before the howling blast. It was nowhalf-past five, and half-an-hour later, when the last of the day lostitself in a dim and furious twilight, I sighted a third boat. It wasbottom up, and there was no sign of its crew. Wolf Larsen repeated hismanœuvre, holding off and then rounding up to windward and drifting downupon it. But this time he missed by forty feet, the boat passing astern.

“Number four boat!” Oofty-Oofty cried, his keen eyes reading its numberin the one second when it lifted clear of the foam, and upside down.

It was Henderson’s boat and with him had been lost Holyoak and Williams,another of the deep-water crowd. Lost they indubitably were; but theboat remained, and Wolf Larsen made one more reckless effort to recoverit. I had come down to the deck, and I saw Horner and Kerfoot vainlyprotest against the attempt.

“By God, I’ll not be robbed of my boat by any storm that ever blew out ofhell!” he shouted, and though we four stood with our heads together thatwe might hear, his voice seemed faint and far, as though removed from usan immense distance.

“Mr. Van Weyden!” he cried, and I heard through the tumult as one mighthear a whisper. “Stand by that jib with Johnson and Oofty! The rest ofyou tail aft to the mainsheet! Lively now! or I’ll sail you all intoKingdom Come! Understand?”

And when he put the wheel hard over and the _Ghost’s_ bow swung off,there was nothing for the hunters to do but obey and make the best of arisky chance. How great the risk I realized when I was once more buriedbeneath the pounding seas and clinging for life to the pinrail at thefoot of the foremast. My fingers were torn loose, and I swept across tothe side and over the side into the sea. I could not swim, but before Icould sink I was swept back again. A strong hand gripped me, and whenthe _Ghost_ finally emerged, I found that I owed my life to Johnson. Isaw him looking anxiously about him, and noted that Kelly, who had comeforward at the last moment, was missing.

This time, having missed the boat, and not being in the same position asin the previous instances, Wolf Larsen was compelled to resort to adifferent manœuvre. Running off before the wind with everything tostarboard, he came about, and returned close-hauled on the port tack.

“Grand!” Johnson shouted in my ear, as we successfully came through theattendant deluge, and I knew he referred, not to Wolf Larsen’sseamanship, but to the performance of the _Ghost_ herself.

It was now so dark that there was no sign of the boat; but Wolf Larsenheld back through the frightful turmoil as if guided by unerringinstinct. This time, though we were continually half-buried, there wasno trough in which to be swept, and we drifted squarely down upon theupturned boat, badly smashing it as it was heaved inboard.

Two hours of terrible work followed, in which all hands of us—twohunters, three sailors, Wolf Larsen and I—reefed, first one and then theother, the jib and mainsail. Hove to under this short canvas, our deckswere comparatively free of water, while the _Ghost_ bobbed and duckedamongst the combers like a cork.

I had burst open the ends of my fingers at the very first, and during thereefing I had worked with tears of pain running down my cheeks. And whenall was done, I gave up like a woman and rolled upon the deck in theagony of exhaustion.

In the meantime Thomas Mugridge, like a drowned rat, was being draggedout from under the forecastle head where he had cravenly ensconcedhimself. I saw him pulled aft to the cabin, and noted with a shock ofsurprise that the galley had disappeared. A clean space of deck showedwhere it had stood.

In the cabin I found all hands assembled, sailors as well, and whilecoffee was being cooked over the small stove we drank whisky and crunchedhard-tack. Never in my life had food been so welcome. And never had hotcoffee tasted so good. So violently did the _Ghost_, pitch and toss andtumble that it was impossible for even the sailors to move about withoutholding on, and several times, after a cry of “Now she takes it!” we wereheaped upon the wall of the port cabins as though it had been the deck.

“To hell with a look-out,” I heard Wolf Larsen say when we had eaten anddrunk our fill. “There’s nothing can be done on deck. If anything’sgoing to run us down we couldn’t get out of its way. Turn in, all hands,and get some sleep.”

The sailors slipped forward, setting the side-lights as they went, whilethe two hunters remained to sleep in the cabin, it not being deemedadvisable to open the slide to the steerage companion-way. Wolf Larsenand I, between us, cut off Kerfoot’s crushed finger and sewed up thestump. Mugridge, who, during all the time he had been compelled to cookand serve coffee and keep the fire going, had complained of internalpains, now swore that he had a broken rib or two. On examination wefound that he had three. But his case was deferred to next day,principally for the reason that I did not know anything about broken ribsand would first have to read it up.

“I don’t think it was worth it,” I said to Wolf Larsen, “a broken boatfor Kelly’s life.”

“But Kelly didn’t amount to much,” was the reply. “Good-night.”

After all that had passed, suffering intolerable anguish in myfinger-ends, and with three boats missing, to say nothing of the wildcapers the _Ghost_ was cutting, I should have thought it impossible tosleep. But my eyes must have closed the instant my head touched thepillow, and in utter exhaustion I slept throughout the night, the whilethe _Ghost_, lonely and undirected, fought her way through the storm.